A Shadow Across Me
by spotteddream
Summary: Laura is a jaded and ambitious graduate student who comes to Forks seeking quiet writing time. She plans to spend the summer with her advisor's family, at a farm they own. She does not know that a young, married couple now lives there, under the advice of the wife's father Charlie... or that one of the husband's friends will be rabidly eager to spend time with her...
1. Prologue

"DISCLAIMER: None of _Twilight_ etc. is mine. None of Browning's work is mine. And, sadly, none of Laura's [stellar] work is mine [and none is included because I'm able to write nearly as good as she can :)].

""I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,

The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,

Those of my own life, who by turns had flung

A shadow across me."

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning, _Sonnets of the Portuguese_ I

Laura had reached Elizabeth Barrett Browning's _Sonnets of the Portuguese_ by the time that her plane touched down in Forks Airport.

She was glad that the plane trip was almost over and she could close her poetry anthology; honestly, Laura didn't want to read anything by the blissfully married Mrs. Browning. She was twenty-seven, and she had never even been in love.

Sure, she had tried boyfriends; she had tried dates; she had tried dying her hair blonde and then black. The men she wanted just never wanted her back.

Last year, Laura had decided to let her hair stay its natural dull brown. She stopped trying.

She still had two more years to finish her dual PhD in Literary Studies and Creative Writing, after all. She figured that she could start trying again afterwards. She had put too much effort into her dissertation to get distracted from it now—or, at least, to get unproductively distracted from it now. Laura was actually planning on ignoring her dissertation all summer, as she worked to write a book of poems worth publishing. She was excited, at least, to live in Forks, the country's capital of rain. She hoped Forks would give her an endless string of indoor writing days. Of course, there would be some chores; she would be living with the sister of her dissertation advisor, who owned a small farm nearby Forks, in a reservation which Laura remembered as "Lapush." To the family of her advisor, Laura couldn't seem antisocial, only focused.

The plane finally stopped rolling along the ground, and Laura grabbed her carry-on suitcase from the shelf above her seat. She had only brought the small, roll-along suitcase and a purse, knowing that she could buy clothes and what other sparse possessions she needed when she arrived. She didn't need much; there would be no one to impress, here.

She walked outside the airport, inhaling deeply and enjoying the freshness of the air. The sky was filled with large, grey clouds. It was strangely quiet. There were no taxis here, no shuttle buses, no subways to take Laura to her advisor's sister's house and family. Laura felt uneasy as she reflected that she only knew one person, as the sister of someone she knew. This was no New York City.

But it was quiet, and Laura reveled in the silence during the long walk to her temporary home, in this risky and rural place where Google Maps was to be her only acquaintance.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter One

According to Laura's advisor, this farm was a few miles up the road from a small diner at 312 Oak Avenue. Laura didn't think about how difficult it could possibly be to find the farm until she was at that diner, her Google Maps destination.

It was six o'clock, three hours after her plane had landed, and Laura was beginning to feel exhausted. She wanted to change out of her now-dusty jeans and now-soaking wet sneakers. She sighed as she peered into the diner's windows and saw that it was dark inside. _A restaurant, closed at dinner-time,_ Laura marveled.

It was slowly growing dark outside as well. Laura knew she _could_ continue up the road and try to find the farm, but she didn't really want to in the dark. She simply plopped down on the concrete step outside the diner door. She deserved a break, or at least a pause.

After a few moments, a red truck pulled into the diner's small, six-spot parking lot. Its bottom was more brown than red, though, and it had plenty of grey marks and dents on it. The car fit into the sloppy scene surrounding Laura.

It groaned to a halt, but the sludge on the outside prevented Laura from seeing more than shadows in the driver and the passenger seats…. until the driver opened her door and jumped out.

"Hey!"

A pretty woman with black hair and pale skin walked over. "Sorry, we're closed on Sundays, too. We're using the same hours that the Habernams used when they owned this place."

Laura just stared at her dumbly.

"You're a tourist, then? I can recommend some other good places to eat around here, though," the woman added quickly. "There are plenty of restaurants in the nearby Forks."

"I thought… I'm staying with the Habernams, actually," Laura said. That was her advisor's last name.

Now the woman stared at her.

Laura continued, "Wait… this was their diner? I thought they just owned the nearby farm."

The woman shook her head slowly. "No… they moved out about a couple of months ago. They had a family emergency in California and relocated there for the summer. Um… I'm actually living in their farm now, for the summer, to watch over everything for them—"

"I… but my dissertation advisor said that was all arranged… that I could stay with them over the summer and work on my manuscript and it would be quiet and peaceful here… my dissertation advisor is the sister of Mr. Habernam…"

The woman quietly gasped and seemed to finally understand something. " _She's_ the sister that never calls or comes to visit!"

Laura felt her stomach drop. "So… so I can't stay with them, I guess," she said dumbly. Her summer had become un-arranged in only a few moments.

The woman narrowed her eyes. She tilted her head and seemed to pause.

"Well, if you've come all this way…" she said slowly.

"Hm. Tell you what. I need to pick up a few groceries from our fridge in the restaurant, and then I'm going back to the farm to make dinner. Why don't you come with me. We can at least give you dinner tonight, and we'll see what we can do about letting you stay with us this summer."

Still stunned, Laura followed the woman through the restaurant's back door and helped her carry a few bags from the refrigerator to the backseat of the truck.

Sensing her hesitation, the woman smiled. "You can sit in the front seat – that's fine," she said.

After they had entered the car and slammed the doors shut, the woman turned on the radio and backed out.

"Honestly, I'd love some help… I'd be down to let you stay at the farm this summer anyways," she said. "But let's get home. We can make some dinner, and I can ask Jake."

As they pulled up the long driveway, the woman gave a short laugh and shut off the instrumental music. "Not the biggest fan of Debussy," she explained. "You're not, are you?"

As Laura shook her head, the woman banged the steering wheel with the palm of her right hand. "Oh wow, I've completely forgotten to introduce myself! Wow, pregnancy brain. My name's Bella Swan— I'm from Forks."

"No worries, nice to meet you," Laura said without skipping a beat. Truth be told, she didn't much mind Bella's lack of propriety.

"I'm Laura Marshfield – I'm a Literary Studies and Creative Writing graduate student at Everest in New York City," she explained.

"That's a mouthful," Bella said wonderingly. "Wow. Sounds like a ton of reading."

"And writing," Laura said, a little stiffly. "My goal is to eventually teach creative writing as a faculty member. However, I think it's important that I get a strong foundation in literary theory and history—hence the Literary Studies degree as well."

"Oh," Bella said. "Cool."

And they sat in silence as the farm acres rolled into view. It was beautiful: white fences flanked the narrow driveway and gave way to seemingly infinite fields. At the moment, they were lit by gold, from the sun. Laura could see a few horses grazing on the horizon.

"What a wonderful place," she breathed.

"We're lucky," Bella said. "The Habernams said we'd be doing them a favor, but really, they're doing us a favor. Jake is finishing up his mechanic's license, and I just finished my Bachelor's Degree in Journalism. I'm going to get some freelance jobs soon, and Jake's going to start building a business, but the Habernams gave us this summer to just breathe before we move on with our lives."

"You never thought of getting more schooling?" Laura asked.

"No," Bella said softly, and she smiled. "Jake and I can't wait that long to have a family. And we don't have a choice, now, anyways. And I don't mind."

She absentmindedly touched her belly, and Laura remembered the pregnancy brain comment.

"Oh," Laura said. "Oh, right."

They let another silence fill the car, as the house became visible in the distance.


End file.
